On Tuesday night, NBC decided to highlight a series of stumbles by Republican presidential candidates, none of them all that significant (Romney having $100 bills in his wallet and Perry referring to Twitter as “tweeter”), before later in the newscast showing White House-produced video of a baby which stopped crying when handed to President Obama. “The White House would probably love for us to believe this next piece of videotape is evidence of special healing powers,” Williams announced, feeling obligated to make clear he realized “it isn't, but it is amusing.”

Looking at the announcement by Jon Huntsman, Andrea Mitchell cited his “faulty sound system,” how the press pass misspelled Huntsman’s first name and how “the press corps was first directed to a plane bound for Saudi Arabia instead of New Hampshire,” but “even there geography was a problem.” After a clip of Huntsman saying “we’ve just come this morning from New York where we announced in front of the Statue of Liberty,” Mitchell pounced, complete with a big map on screen: “Except he wasn’t in New York, it was New Jersey.”

Mitchell proceeded to bring up what she described as “an iconic moment as occurs on these campaigns” when “Mitt Romney in Colorado when at Mexican restaurant trying to trade a dollar bill with a young boy, all he could find in his wallet at first were $100 bills.” The horror.

Williams chimed in, recalling “these little moments from the campaign, seemingly inconsequential can sometimes be indelible or when they're President, both Bushes had theirs – the supermarket scanner and George W. Bush saying ‘the Googles’ about the Internet era. I understand there's yet another from the campaign trail?”

Mitchell confirmed on the Tuesday, June 21 NBC Nightly News: “There is yet another. Not yet a candidate, but Rick Perry, very likely to get in, the Governor of Texas, today trying to show that he is down with social media.”

NBC then played a clip from a Web video of Perry: “Until then, if you've had enough, take out your phone and text ‘Fed Up’ to 95613. And you can always follow me on tweeter ‘@GovernorPerry.’ Thanks for this award. God bless you.”

Mitchell mocked: “You can always find him on tweeter.”

-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.

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